(March 28, 2014) - An article in the Wall Street Journal highlighted companies that are actively seeking to employ individuals with autism because of the many strengths associated with the disorder.

Both SAP AG, a Germany-based software company, and mortgage lender Freddie Mac are hiring employees on the autism spectrum because they believe these individuals are better suited for certain jobs than their neurotypical peers.

SAP aims to have up to 1% of its workforce—about 650 people—be employees with autism by 2020, according to Jose Velasco, head of the autism initiative at SAP in the U.S. Mr. Velasco, a father of two children with autism, cited attention to detail, structured nature and different ways of seeing things as some of the many strengths that individuals with autism bring to the workplace, making them perfectly suited for certain jobs at SAP, such as data management and web development.

Another story in the WSJ spotlighted the experiences of Aaron Cohen, a data analyst in the information-technology department at Freddie Mac, who also has autism.